Recently we asked for reader feedback on why they are against Prop 8 and for gay equality. For more information on this open call for participation and using YOUR voice: Why Are You Against Prop 8? Share Your Stories. Keep your submissions coming, here is Volume IV!

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“Simple… I have several lesbian couples as friends. One in particular are also neighbors, as well as close friends. I can’t imagine them not being allowed to love each other and share their lives as my husband and I do.

Gay people aren’t getting married to destroy the nuclear family unit or to threaten the unions of straight people. They’re getting married because they genuinely love each other and want to spend their lives together. What is so threatening about that? Isn’t that the point of marriage? Isn’t that the power of marriage? Why can’t everyone have that right? Isn’t that what our constitution offers us, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?! Where’s the disconnect? Marriage is not a contract for procreation; it’s a bond of love.

There is nothing more evil than hatred and bigotry and oppression hiding behind the cloak of religion and false morality. Focusing our insecurities, fears, anger and hatred on everyone who isn’t exactly like us is what has led to every atrocity ever committed by mankind.” - to read more of Margo from Rural PA’s column, visit her blog at http://margotpotter.blogspot.com/2008/11/one-step-forward-three-steps-back.html

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“As a minority and diversity consultant who is straight, I opposed Prop. 8 because I abhor discrimination against any group of human beings. Frankly, I’m afraid that the next one who could be discriminated against is me. ” - Michael, CA

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“I have to say that I am so strongly opposed to prop 8 that I cried on the morning after the election, even through my elation over Obama becoming president.

I am happily married, with a child, and the fact that I married a man is just a consequence of who he is and our bond, not so much of what his body structure might be.  Had I fallen in love with a woman and decided to start a family with her, the thought that it would somehow stigmatize me so that I would not have the same rights makes me sick.

Why can’t we learn from the past and just realize that we are ALL the same and should ALL have the same rights, instead of finding false “differences” so that we can ghetto-ize and create “otherness.”  It used to be that women and people of color couldn’t vote or own property — we were property.  People couldn’t racially intermarry.  It took time and we aren’t all the way there yet, but the fact is that over time, as a society and as a community, we realized that we are all humans and we should all have the same rights………………… almost…….

This is the next phase in the process and I, for one, am determined to see that we move forwards and not backwards in our thinking about humans and the rights we ALL have.

If we create a society in which any group can judge any other group and determine their rights as different, we are no better than the sexists and racists who came before us.

What’s next, the right of one religious group to determine what works for all people and undo the rights we have under the constitution to freedom of religion???

The right to the “Pursuit of happiness” is a right to marrying the person who makes you happy.  I don’t think that this is an issue of Gay Marriage.  I think it is an issue of Marriage, pure and simple — that everyone has the right.” - Michele Samuels, Mill Valley, CA